CXO of the Week: Srividya Kannan, Founder, Director, Avaali Solutions

Your top priority while making decisions to improve tech infra in your organization?

We’re always looking to simplify processes and make them faster. Technologies that execute these priorities is what we look to invest in. With cloud based solutions, we’re able to leverage rich solutions that also allow us to spread our investments over a period of time. We’re always looking to ensure that our teams work collaboratively and are able to find information when they need them.

Challenges you face in driving digital transformation?

Prioritizing requirements and putting together an action plan that minimizes our evaluation, as well as implementation time, is critical to ensure that we’re utilizing our time effectively. We’d rather have our plans laid out very clearly before identifying solutions since we don’t want to invest our time in unproductive activities. Getting this right every time requires a lot of management time and attention. Execution and change management are relatively less complex problems to solve.

Do you feel that freshers in the industry come with only basic knowledge but don’t have the right skills to fulfil job requirements? If yes, your suggestion to students and colleges?

Yes, unfortunately this is true. Students don’t really come ready for the roles we’re looking to fill, and hence, getting them ready requires at least six months of full-fledged training. Several times, the freshers are not inclined or don’t really have the passion to continue working in their area of specialization.

An engineering student who gets trained on the technologies we work on intends to pursue business studies and major in finance or marketing. Hence we typically see about 30% of dead investments due to this. On the other hand, about 15% of overall fresh hires that we have, eventually turn out to deliver great returns over a period of 2-3 years.

The entry criteria for colleges should go beyond just qualifying marks, ability to pass entrance test or even pay the fee and should possibly explore a bit deeper to understand if the student loves the subject they are going to specialize in. Facilitating discussions with counsellors and getting that evaluation done is critical to be able to deliver a great batch of students who are truly going to add value to anyone.

What’s your mantra to become successful in life?

Doing what you love is a sine qua non for success.

What would you like to give back to society?

I would love to give back in the form of education, teaching young minds and even spending time with them to help them progress towards their full potential.

Your favourite book and what are you reading now?

Lean Startup by Eric Ries is what I’m reading at the moment. I have several favourites. Art of War by Sun Tzu, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience are amongst the top.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

I like watching the sunset and watching birds.

Achievements (Awards & Recognitions)

ET startup awards nomination in the Bootstrap champ category

SAP ACE Awards for the transformation we did for ReNew power in their Accounts Payable Process

Business World Disruptor Awards

Globe premium awards

Experience

19 years of experience in the industry

First Job: She started her career in a startup NBFC organization where she was managing their fee and fund based business. She was interacting with several customer organizations to provide them with short and long-term loans, leases and assets on hire purchase.

Education: MBA and Bachelor of Commerce, ICWA